Arizona State athletic director Lisa Love said she always enjoys her trips back home to the area. And not only for the obvious reasons.
"First of all,"
Love said, beginning to laugh, "everybody has the right accent."
Love, who is from Arlington, hasn't lost all of her Texan twang despite three years as Arizona State's athletic director that followed a 17-year stint at Southern California.
A Texas Tech alumna, Love built UT-Arlington's volleyball team into a national power in the late 1980s as head coach.
Love, whose mother lives in Arlington and sister in Dallas, said Wednesday that she's proud to be one of only five Football Bowl Subdivision women athletic directors in the nation.
"As part of my day-to-day, I don't think about managing like a woman or if I have to behave like a guy because it's a traditional male position,"
said Love, who is in town this week for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics convention at the Hilton Anatole.
"It's just me. I'm just trying to lead the department the way I would lead the department."
She's certainly done that well. Since arriving at ASU, she's had to handle several coaching hires, including bringing in former Miami coach Dennis Erickson to lead the Sun Devils' football program.
Love also recently announced that ASU and Notre Dame will meet in football on Oct. 5, 2013, at the Cowboys' new stadium in Arlington.
"Being able to bring our football program into that environment to play Notre Dame is like a bowl game in October,"
Love said.
Leaders push for more minority hiring: Dutch Baughman, the executive director of the Grapevine-based Division I-A Athletic Directors' Association, held a session Wednesday encouraging more minority hiring in college athletics.
The Division I-A Athletic Directors John McLendon Minority Scholarship Steering Committee recently applauded the efforts of Baughman and the association in issuing college football "acceptable standards"
for minority hiring.
Similar to the NFL's Rooney Rule, the standards call for institutions searching for a head football coach to interview at least one minority candidate.
